Avast PC Trends Report. January 2017 by Avast Software

Transcription

1 Avast PC Trends Report January 2017 by Avast Software

2 Contents A Introduction...2 B PC Insights & Analysis - Software...3 Installed programs...4 Out of date applications...5 The Top 10 least updated applications Global Windows usage...8 The Top 3 most up-to-date applications...9. C PC Insights & Analysis - Hardware Most popular memory size...11 CPU cores...11 HDD vs. SDD Contact Information

3 A Introduction The Avast PC Trends Report for January 2017 looks at the anonymous data of millions of desktop and laptop users worldwide running Windows to give a real world picture of most used applications, which hardware is the most popular, which software is outdated and more. Methodology SOFTWARE, RAM & HDD DATA FROM OVER 116,000,000 WINDOWS USERS In the last year, the Windows PC has undergone a significant transformation. With the advent of Windows 10, new form factors, and new use cases, the role of the PC is being re-defined in today s mobile-centric world. The Avast PC Trends Report for January 2017 reveals how people are using their PCs today and provides an overview of the hardware and software out there. The contains anonymous data from a base sample of more than 116 million users worldwide. CPU DATA FROM OVER 3,000,000 WINDOWS USERS The CPU data features in this report was gathered from a sample of 3 million randomly selected PCs worldwide. << Contents 2

4 PC Insights & Analysis SOFTWARE

5 B PC Insights & Analysis - Software Installed programs The average PC owner has 49 installed programs. This includes well-known applications like Firefox, 7-ZIP, Java and itunes. So what does the majority of our sampled user base of 116 million do with their PCs? Browsing tops the list with Internet Explorer at number 1, Google Chrome at 2 nd position and Firefox in the number 5 spot. This is closely followed by by Skype and VLC Player on number 8 and 9 respectively. Below are the most common applications. THE TOP 10 MOST USED PC PROGRAMS 1 Internet Explorer Microsoft Corporation Flash Player Plug-In Adobe Google Chrome Google Inc. Adobe Reader Adobe Flash Player (Active X) Adobe Mozilla Firefox Mozilla 6 78 Skype Microsoft Corp. VLC Player Videolabs 9WinRAR RARLAB 10Java Oracle Corporation Note: Internet Explorer usage might be caused by not only active users running the browser but other programs, including Windows, using iexplore.exe to render web elements. Chrome, Adobe and VLC Just a few of the most used programs in our list << Contents 4

6 B PC Insights & Analysis - Software Out of date applications Over 52% of the most popular, critical and security related applications, like Firefox, Flash or Java aren t being updated by users around the world. This can be caused by users ignoring updates and updates not working properly. It doesn t just open up the door for attackers exploiting out of date software vulnerabilities, but users are also missing out on the latest features, bug fixes and compatibility they get through latest software. We sampled this data using Automatic Software Updater, which is now part of the 2017 release of AVG TuneUp (by Avast). Java Runtime Environment: one of the most outdated programs and a security risk. << Contents 5

7 B PC Insights & Analysis - Software The Top 10 least updated applications 1 Java (Runtime 6, 7, 8): Almost 50% of users (56 million users) are running one 3 version of Java Runtime Environment. Given this program has in the past been the carrier of some of the most critical security vulnerabilities (see here for a comprehensive list)) on Windows PCs, this opens up the front gates for malware 4 and exploits.. Almost 25% of users are running the outdated JRE 6 or 7. Unfortunately, even users on the newest release (version 8) might not be up to date as our data showed 70% aren t running the latest version.. 2 Flash (ActiveX): Popular web technology Flash is known for its security exploits and other issues such as draining battery life from laptops. Our research showed the Flash ActiveX control for Internet Explorer is outdated in 99% of all instances. 5 FoxIt Reader: Popular 3rd party PDF reader FoxIt also suffered as one of the top programs that was not updated. 92% of all FoxIt users are working with an older version. GOM Media Player: Touted by its developer as The only player you ll ever need, it appears from our research that users download the media player but subsequently don t update it. 90% of our user sample aren t running the latest version, which would gives them enhanced playback performance, more video filters and a range of useful upgrades on an almost monthly basis. Nitro Pro: Another PDF reader, Nitro Pro is also neglected in 89% of all cases. Again, the lack of updates means users can be faced with bugs and vulnerabilities. Uninstall Flash if you re not using Internet Explorer. For users of other browsers like Firefox, Chrome or Opera which use the Flash plugin, note that a still high 38% of all cases were outdated. << Contents 6

8 6 7 WinZip: This long-lived tool has retained it s popularity yet over 87% aren t running the latest release which comes with some nifty features and fixes. DivX: Once the leader in making sure movies ripped from DVDs run properly, it s now only installed on a small percentage of our user base. Unfortunately, 86% of these users are running an older version and should upgrade to use the latest functionality like screen casting or syncing videos with cloud storage providers like Dropbox ZIP: 82% of all 7-Zip users in our sample are out of date - it s likely that users are not aware that even a compression tool might need updates. Due to its popularity, using an outdated version opens up the door to potential attacks (see here). Firefox: With over 73% of users running an out of date version, they aren t enjoying the latest release and might be missing out on important security fixes and new features. 8 Adobe Shockwave: Another popular free web player by Adobe that is used in high-performance games or other interactive desktop and web applications. But just as with its subscription sibling, Shockwave is also not free of security issues and a massive 84% of users had not updated to the latest version. Get the software updates manually today or use AVG TuneUp s Automatic Software Updater and be done with it once and for all as it automatically checks and installs updates silently in the background. << Contents 7

9 B PC Insights & Analysis - Software Global Windows usage Windows XP is still installed on 6.5 million of our users PCs which is just over 5% of our sample base. This is a 15 year old operating system that was discontinued almost 3 years ago with Microsoft not issuing any significant security updates or bug fixes since. Worryingly, this usage is actually higher than that of Windows Vista, coming in at just 2% - and that s more secure and reliable by far. Windows % (56,184,040) Windows % (2,914,615) Windows % (12,734,526) Windows % (35,396,912) Windows XP 5.64% (6,552,116) Windows Vista 2.08% (2,417,924) Microsoft s unsupported Windows XP OS is still used by 6.5 million people << Contents 8

10 B PC Insights & Analysis - Software The Top 3 most up-to-date applications On the other side, a few applications have really managed to keep more than 70% of their entire user base updated. These are: 1 Google Chrome 88% Up-to-date 2 3 Opera 84% Up-to-date Skype 76% Up-to-date << Contents 9

11 PC Insights & Analysis HARDWARE

12 C PC Insights & Analysis - Hardware Most popular memory size - 4 Gigabyte The most popular memory size is 4 GB of RAM as users tend to keep their PCs around for longer. The next most common size is 2 GB, which was considered low even 5-6 years ago and which brings with it performance problems like long startup times and sluggish browsing. On the other hand, 8 and 16 GB sizes (which are more than enough for everyday tasks), are increasing with roughly 15 and 2 million of our users respectively running these today. At one end of the spectrum, we found 9.6 million users have 1 GB or less of memory, which is barely enough to have just a few browser tabs open. At the other end, only users are working with 32 GB of RAM, and less than have a massive 64 GB of RAM sitting under their desk. 3 GB 6.00% (6,969,049) CPU cores Amount of RAM installed 4 GB 43.33% (50,296,318) 6 GB 5.59% (6,493,368) 8 GB 13.09% (15,193,492) 16 GB 1.94% (2,256,280) 32 GB or more 0.16% (183,984) 2 GB 21.60% (25,073,456) 1 GB or less 8.28% (9,615,469) The CPU is a PC s brain, controlling and calculating everything a user does on their computer. The most common number of cores are two since, more than a decade ago, CPUs became smarter and improved their multi-tasking capabilities with multiple cores on one chip. While the technology has improved, dual-core remains the most popular type of processor with 77% of our user base sample owning a PC with a dual-core by either AMD or Intel. And even though both chip makers have moved on, quad-core is still relatively rare at just 15%. Only less than 0.5% of users have 6, 8 or more cores. << Contents 11

13 C PC Insights & Analysis - Hardware HDD vs. SSD The supposed rise of SSDs is clearly a myth as old-school mechanical disks (HDDs) still dominate the world. Out of a total of 91 million hard disks*, only 10 million were newer Solid State Disks which are usually much faster and more reliable, giving users almost instant boot times and much better performance opening programs or files. Average size: 500 GB for HDDs, 256 GB for SSDs Looking at the mechanical world, it s no surprise that traditional HDDs are still dominant with 30 million users out of 81 million (37%) having a 500 GB hard disk. The most common SSD size among the anonymously sampled user base of 10 million is 256 GB (33% of all users), closely followed by 128 GB (29%). Solid State Disks are usually much faster and more reliable, giving users almost instant boot times and much better performance opening programs or files. * Note: We only evaluated hard disk drives using the modern SATA standard and excluded older interfaces, USB drives and also zeroed out disks that reported wrong disk capacity (too low or too high), which accounts for only 91 million out of our total userbase of 116 million sampled. << Contents 12

14 Contact Information Tony Anscombe - Senior Security Evangelist tony.anscombe@avast.com Sandro Villinger - Consumer Marketing & Product Strategy sandro.villinger@avast.com All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Google is a trademark of Google Inc., registered in the United States and other countries Google Chrome and Android are trademarks of Google Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.facebook is a trademark of Facebook, Inc., registered in the United States and in other countries. Twitter is a trademark of Twitter Inc., registered in the United States and in other countries. Amazon is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc registered in the United States and other countries. Apple is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. << Contents 13